Abstract

Timely evaluation of cardiologic patients by a specialist can e vital for their prognosis and outcome; in the Chilean public health context, high demand, lack of specialists and centralized imaging tests often result in waiting lists and delayed cardiologist assessment and intervention. GALILEO, a teleconsultation, teleimaging and tele-EKG platform has been in use since October 2008 in Chile’s Bío-bío region, and has shown potential for significant reduction of time on patient referral to cardiologist response, reduction of patients’ waiting lists for specialist assessment, overall positive impact on patient management and better use of the limited specialist time available versus the traditional patient referral system. This work’s objective is to demonstrate these advantages.